Manolo Romero
Manolo Romero, managing director of Olympic Broadcasting Services will receive the 2010 year’s IBC International Honour for Excellence, the highest award IBC bestows. Romero will also deliver the keynote speech in the conference on Saturday, Sept.11.
Romero, born in Seville, began his career as an engineer with Spanish national broadcaster TVE in 1965. In 1968 he was selected to work on his first Olympic Games, in Mexico. Since then, he has been involved in the television coverage of every single Games, summer and winter.
Today he works on behalf of the International Olympic Committee, guiding the host broadcaster at each individual games to ensure that full coverage. That means ensuring that the voice of the smallest nations is heard clearly alongside the big networks, so his role is as much about balancing political pressures as it is about engineering.
His principle has always been to ensure that the fundamentals are in place, to capture every moment of every event. Once he knows that all the rights holding broadcasters around the world will see their athletes compete, then he considers adding innovations which make the coverage remarkable.
Peter Owen, chairman of the IBC Council which selects the recipient of the IHFE, said Romero “ensures that the boundaries are pushed further at each games, without ever risking the core expectations.”
Romero said “I have been very fortunate to work in many sports events where we have been able to use state of the art technology and innovations. With the help of many colleagues, we have made important strides in the development of television sports coverage.”
Romero’s keynote on Saturday takes place during a day dedicated to sporting topics across the content creation and business of broadcasting streams.Guided by Romero, this opening session will take a look at the history of Olympic broadcasting and the state of technology today, reflecting on the excellent coverage of the Vancouver games earlier this year. It will conclude with a look to the future, as Roger Mosey, the BBC head of London 2012, introduces some of the next batch of innovations in Olympic broadcasting.
The IBC International Honour for Excellence will be presented to Romero as part of the Awards Ceremony at 6:30 p.m, Sunday. The ceremony is open to all IBC visitors, although space is limited in the Auditorium.
